Decision comes after months of discussion and debate, center could open by mid-2020

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Ming Sun, of Fremont, speaks Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019, at the Fremont City
Council meeting, urging the council to place the city's first homeless
navigation center at a parking lot behind city hall. (Joseph Geha/Bay Area
News Group)

Members of the Fremont City Council listen as a person speaks about the
location of the city's first ever homeless navigation center at a meeting
on Sept. 10, 2019. (Joseph Geha/Bay Area News Group)

Hundreds of people lined up outside Fremont City Hall Tuesday evening, in
anticipation of voicing their opinions about the city’s first planned
homeless navigation center, an issue that has stirred significant debate in
the largely affluent East Bay suburb. (Joseph Geha/Bay Area News Group)

People wearing shirt that have the words “No HNC in Fremont” and “Little
Help Big Waste” printed on the back are seen the Fremont City Council
meeting on Sept. 10, 2019. (Joseph Geha/Bay Area News Group)

Groups of people holding signs and posters expressing their views on
Fremont's planned homeless navigation center are seen behind television
news station reporters broadcasting from Fremont City Hall's parking lot on
Sept. 10, 2019. (Joseph Geha/Bay Area News Group)

Groups of people hold up signs and posters expressing their views on
Fremont's planned homeless navigation center as television news station
reporters broadcast from in front of them in Fremont City Hall's parking
lot on Sept. 10, 2019. (Joseph Geha/Bay Area News Group)

FREMONT — After months of debate, the Fremont City Council unanimously agreed that its budding downtown was the best spot for a homeless navigation center.

The center, aimed at housing 45 homeless people for up to six months, will be placed in a parking lot behind city hall, near transit options and social services and where many of the city’s homeless already reside.

“These folks are already here, they’re already on the street,” said Vice Mayor Raj Salwan during a raucous hearing at Tuesday’s council meeting.

Most of the council said they supported the city hall location for its access to BART, the Fremont Family Resource center, grocery stores and potential employers for homeless people who would stay there, echoing sentiments of a large group of residents opposed to placing the center at a north Fremont location.

Some residents called for the the city to scrap plans for the center altogether. But Councilman Rick Jones said they need to show sympathy for others because in the pricey Bay Area, it doesn’t take much for someone to “end up on the street.”

Hundreds of people lined up outside City Hall Tuesday evening, in anticipation of voicing their opinions about the center, which has stirred significant debate in the largely affluent East Bay suburb where the average home sale price is around $1 million.

In July, the council narrowed the possible locations for the center to two pieces of city-owned property — a parking lot behind city hall in downtown off 3300 Capitol Ave., or on surplus land next to a plant nursery in the northern end of the city at 4178 Decoto Rd.

However, warring groups of residents from the neighborhoods near each of the two locations had vehemently protested against placing the center in their neck of the woods. While some were completely against a center, another group supported establishing the center anywhere in the city.

The navigation center would be modeled after a navigation center created in Berkeley last year, and would be comprised of prefabricated buildings, city staff said, including dormitory-style sleeping units, community rooms, and hygiene units.

About half of the people selected to stay there would be homeless people living in Fremont currently, as well as some from Newark and Union City. Those in the program would work with dedicated housing “navigators” whose main responsibility is to find them permanent housing, whether it be an apartment, shared living space, or renting a room in a house.

Staff members of the center would also help residents in finding employment, benefits, and health and wellness connections.

The center could be ready for use by mid-2020, and would cost about $7.7 million to build and operate over the next three fiscal years, city staff said.

The city plans to pay for that with approximately $3.7 million from housing and homelessness emergency state funds, about $3.2 million in city money including surplus funds and affordable housing funds, and $800,000 from Alameda County’s social services funding.

Although Bay Area Community Services — a nonprofit Fremont chose to run the future center — touted a roughly 80 percent success rate of moving people into housing from its Berkeley navigation center in the first year it opened, some residents believe the center is a bad idea.

“I feel it’s not an effective way to use public funds,” said Tom Zhang, who lives in the Mission San Jose area of the city, and is opposed to the center altogether. He’d like to see more emergency homeless funds go toward rental subsidies for the working poor instead.

Jane Wang, from central Fremont, is worried that more homeless people will come from other parts of the state if a navigation center is established here.

Both Zhang and Wang were wearing red shirts many donned Tuesday night that had the words “No HNC in Fremont” and “Little Help Big Waste” printed on the back.

Others said they doubt the efficacy of the navigation center model.

The question of where to locate the center has been discussed at multiple public workshops and meetings — including one where tensions reached a fever pitch, with people banging on city hall windows and shouting over other speakers.

Tuesday night, people set up tables with information on their views on the issue in the city hall parking lot and distributed signs, while other held posters in support or against the center.

Residents also were concerned that homeless people would commit crimes in their neighborhoods, though Fremont’s police chief, Kim Petersen, said she believes the center would actually contribute to a safer city by reducing the number of people living on the streets, and offering them stability.

Petersen also said the police department will ensure the area around the center doesn’t become overrun with homeless encampments, if they sprout up after the center opens.

Councilman Yang Shao said he likes the downtown location because of the “close supervision that the city government can provide,” and told residents at the meeting he hopes they will give the center a chance to work.

“If it turns out to not be as successful as we hope, then we close it. We terminate it,” Shao said.

Meanwhile, people who favor the center at any location said the council should continue to take action to support people living on society’s margins.

Samar Barakat, who lives in north Fremont, thinks those who protested placing the center in north Fremont and were advocating for the city hall location really didn’t want a center at all.

“They’re just going to keep saying no, no, to each location, until eventually it doesn’t get made in Fremont,” she said.

“It makes me really sad,” she said. “We’ve seen homelessness increasing throughout the years, so this is a solution that needs to happen now, and that can be built upon.”

Joseph Geha is a multimedia journalist covering Fremont, Milpitas, Union City, and Newark for the Bay Area News Group. His prior work has been seen in multiple Bay Area outlets, including SF Weekly, as well as on KQED and KLIV radio. He is a graduate of California State University, East Bay (Hayward), a Fremont native and a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan.

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